On Thursday night after dinner, the first of February, Doug put the newspaper aside and said, "I've got some work to do at the office."

Laura watched him stand up and walk back to the bedroom. Their dinner had been eaten in silence of the stoniest kind. It had been Monday afternoon when she'd driven out to the Hillandale apartments, and since that day she had seen Doug's guilt in every movement and heard it in every word. Doug had asked her what was bothering her, and she'd said she didn't feel well, that she was ready to be unbloated again. That was partly true, but of course only partly; Doug, acting on instincts that had begun to beep like a radar alarm the last few days, did not pursue the point. Laura immersed herself in reading or watching movies on the VCR, her body gathering strength for the rite ahead.

"I'll be back in about..." Doug glanced at the clock as he shrugged into his coat. "I don't know. I'll just be back when I'm through."

She bit her tongue. David was heavy in her belly tonight, and his kicking was a real irritation. She felt huge and lumpy, her sleep had been racked with bad dreams about the madwoman on the balcony for the last two nights, and she was in no mood for games. "How's Erici" she asked.

"Erici He's fine, I guess. Whyi"

"Does he spend as little time at home as you doi"

"Don't start that now. You know I've got a lot of work, and the day isn't long enough."

"The night isn't long enough, either, is iti" she asked.

Doug stopped buttoning his coat. He stared at her, and she thought she saw a small flash of fear in his eyes. "No," he replied. "It's not." His fingers finished the job. "You know how much it costs to raise a child and send him to collegei"

"a lot."

"Yes, a lot. Like more than a hundred thousand dollars, and that's today's rates. By the time David's ready for college, God only knows how much it'll cost. That's what I think about when I have to go to work at night."

She thought she might either burst into tears or laughter, she didn't know which. Her face ached to collapse, but she kept her expression calm by force of will alone. "Will you be home by midnight, theni"

"Midnighti Sure." He pulled his collar up. "Want me to call if I'm going to be too latei"

"That would be nice."

"Okay." Doug leaned over and kissed her cheek, and Laura realized he had dashed his face with English Leather. His lips scraped her flesh, and then they were gone. "See you later," he said. He got his briefcase and headed for the garage door.

Say something, Laura thought. Stop him in his tracks. Stop him from going out that door, right now. But terror hit her, because she didn't know what to say and  -  worst of all  -  she feared that nothing she could say would stop him from leaving.

"The baby," she said.

Doug's steps slowed. He did stop, and he looked back at her from a slice of shadow.

"I think it's going to be only a few more days," she told him.

"Yeah." He smiled nervously. "I guess you're good and ready, aren't youi"

"Stay with mei" Laura asked, and she heard her voice quaver.

Doug took a breath. Laura saw him look around at the walls, a pained expression on his face, like a prisoner judging the width and breadth of his confinement. He took a couple of steps toward her, and then he stopped again. "You know, sometimes... this is hard to say." He paused a few seconds and tried again. "Sometimes I see what we have, and how far we've come, and... I feel really strange inside, like... is this iti I mean... is this what it's all abouti and now, with you about to have the baby... it's like the end of something. Can you understand thati"

She shook her head.

"The end of just us," he went on. "The end of Doug and Laura. You know what I had a dream about last weeki"

"No. Tell me."

"I dreamed I was an old man. I was sitting in that chair." He motioned to it with a tilt of his chin. "I had a gut and I was balding and all I wanted to do was sit in front of the television set and sleep. I don't know where you and David were, but I was alone and everything was behind me, and I... I started crying, because that was a terrible thing to know. I was a rich man, in a fine house, and I was crying because -" He had trouble with this, but he forced it out. "Because the journey's what it's all about. Not the being there. It's the fight to make it, and once you get there..." He trailed off, and shrugged. "I guess I don't make much sense, do Ii"

"Come sit down," she urged him. "Let's talk about it, okayi"

Doug started to walk toward her. She knew he wanted to come, because his body seemed to tremble, as if he were trying to break away from some force that pulled at him. He balanced toward her for a few precious seconds, and then he lifted his arm and looked at his Rolex. "I'd better go. Got a heavy client first thing in the morning, and there's paperwork to clear up." His voice was stiff again, all business. "We'll talk tomorrow, all righti"

"Whenever," Laura said, her throat tight. Doug turned away from her and, briefcase in hand, he walked out of the house.

Laura heard the Mercedes' engine growl. The garage door went up. Before it ratcheted down again, Laura got to her feet. She winced and put a hand to her lower back, which had been hurting since early morning. Her bones ached as she walked across the den, and she picked up the keys to her BMW from the little silver tray. She went to the closet and got her overcoat and purse. Then she walked out  -  hobbled was more the correct term  -  to the garage, slid behind the BMW's wheel, and started the engine.

She had made up her mind that she was going to follow Doug. If he went to work, fine. They would talk about the future honestly, and decide where to go from here. If he went to the Hillandale apartments, she was going to call a lawyer in the morning. She pulled out of the garage, turned off the driveway onto Moore's Mill Road, and drove toward the complex, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

as she merged into the traffic on the expressway, she realized what she was doing as if seeing it from a distance, and its audacity surprised her. She hadn't known she still had any true toughness left in her. She'd thought all her iron had melted in the blast furnace of murder on that hot night in July. But following Doug  -  tracking him as if he were a criminal  -  shamed her, and she began to slow the car to take the next exit ramp off and circle back for home. No, she thought. a stern inner voice, commanding her to keep going. Doug was a criminal. If he had not already slaughtered her heart, he was hacking steadily at it. Savaging their lives together, tearing them asunder, making a mockery of the vows they'd taken. He was a criminal, and he deserved to be tracked like one.

Laura put her foot to the accelerator and sped past the exit.

at the Hillandale apartments, Laura cruised around the building where C. Jannsen lived, looking for Doug's car in a parking slot. There wasn't a Mercedes in sight, only the low-slung, jazzy sports cars of younger people. Laura found an empty space just down from the building, and she pulled into it to wait. He's not here and he's not coming, she thought. He left before I did. If he was coming here, he'd be here already. He went to work, just as he said. He really did go to work. Relief rushed through her, so strong she almost put her head against the steering wheel and sobbed.

Lights brushed past the car. Laura looked behind her and to the right as the Mercedes moved by like a shark on the prowl. Her breath snagged on a soft gasp. The Mercedes pulled into a parking space eleven cars away from Laura. She watched as the lights were switched off and a man got out. He began to walk toward C. Jannsen's building. It was a walk Laura recognized instantly, sort of a half-shamble, half-strut. In Doug's hand was no longer the briefcase, but a six-pack of beer.

He'd stopped at a package store, she realized, and that was why she'd gotten there first. Rage flared within her; she could taste it in her mouth, a burnt taste like the smell of lighter fluid on charcoals. Her fingers were squeezed around the wheel so hard the veins were standing up in relief on the backs of her hands. Doug was on his way to see his girlfriend, and he was swinging the six-pack like an excited schoolboy. Laura reached for the door's handle and popped the door open. She wasn't going to let him get to that apartment thinking he'd pulled another one over on his dimwitted, compliant wife. Hell, no! She was going to fall on him like a sack of concrete on a slug, and when she was through with him, C. Jannsen would need a pooper-scooper to scrape him up.

She stood up, her face flaming with anger.

Her water broke.

The warm fluid flooded between her thighs and down her legs. The shock registered in her mind by the time the fluid reached her knees. What she'd been experiencing as back pain and occasional cramping all day long had been the first stage of labor.

Her baby was about to be born.

She watched Doug turn a corner, and he went out of sight.

Laura stood there for a moment, her panties drenched and the first real contraction beginning to build. The pressure soared into the realm of pain like a powerful hand squeezing a deep bruise, and Laura closed her eyes as the contraction's pain slowly swelled to its zenith and then began to subside. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Time the contractions, she thought. Look at your watch, stupid! She got back into the BMW and checked her watch by the courtesy light. The next contraction began to build within eight minutes, and its force made her clench her teeth.

She could not stay there much longer. Doug had someone. She was on her own.

She started the engine, backed out of the parking slot, and drove away from her husband and the Hillandale apartments.

Two contractions later Laura pulled off the expressway and stopped at a gas station to use the phone. She called Dr. Bonnart, reached his answering service, and was told he'd be paged by his beeper. She waited, gripping the telephone as another contraction pulsed through her, sending pain rippling up her back and down her legs. Then Dr. Bonnart came on the line, listened as she told him what was happening, and he said she should get to St. James Hospital as soon as she could. "See you and Doug there," Dr. Bonnart told her, and he hung up.

The hospital was a large white building in a parklike setting in northeast atlanta. By the time Laura had done the paperwork in Emergency admitting and was moved into the LDR room, Dr. Steven Bonnart showed up in a tuxedo. She told him he hadn't needed to dress for the occasion. Formal dinner party for the hospital's new director, he explained as he watched the monitor that fed out a display of Laura's contractions. Wasn't much of a party anyway, he said, because everybody there wore beepers and the place sounded like a roomful of crickets.

"Where's Dougi" Dr. Bonnart asked as Laura had known he would.

"Doug's... not able to be here," she answered.

Dr. Bonnart stared at her for a few seconds through his round tortoiseshell glasses, and then he gave directions to one of the nurses and he left LDR to get changed and scrubbed.

a Demerol drip was inserted into the back of Laura's hand with a sharp little stab. She was in a green hospital gown with an elastic belt around her waist that fed wires to the monitor, and she sat up on a table with her weight bent forward. The smell of medicine and disinfectant drifted into her nostrils. The nurses were fast and efficient, and they made chatty small talk with Laura but she had trouble concentrating on what they were saying. Everything was becoming a blur of sound and movement, and she watched the monitor's screen blip as the contractions built inside her, swelled and cramped, and finally ebbed again until the next one. One of the nurses began talking about a new car she'd just bought. Bright red, she said. always wanted a bright red car. "Easy breaths," one of the others told Laura, laying her hand on Laura's shoulder. "Just like they taught you in class." Laura's heart was beating hard, and that showed up in erratic spikes on another monitor. The contractions were like trapped thunder, they shook through her body and foretold a storm. "First childi" the nurse with the red car asked as she looked at Laura's chart. "My goodness, my goodness."

Dr. Bonnart reappeared, green-gowned and professional, and he parted Laura's legs to check her dilation. "You're working on it," he told her. "Still have a ways to go yet. Hurting muchi"

"Yes. a little." Did apples hurt when they got coredi "Yes, it's hurting."

"Okay." He gave directions to Red Car about ceecee something, and Laura thought, Time for the big needle, huhi Dr. Bonnart went to a table and came back with a small item that resembled a spring in a ballpoint pen, a wire trailing from it to a high-tech white machine. "a little invasion," he said with a quick smile, and he reached up into her with his gloved fingers. The spring-looking thing was an internal fetal monitor, she knew that from her class. Dr. Bonnart found the baby's head, and he slid the device under the flesh. The high-tech machine began to put out a ticker tape of David's heartbeat and vital signs. Laura felt a scraping at her lower back. The nurse was preparing her for the epidural. at least she wouldn't have to look at the needle. The force of the contractions was powerful now, like a fist beating at a bruise on her spine. "Breathe easy, breathe easy," someone urged. "Little sting now," Dr. Bonnart told her, and she felt the needle go in.

a little sting for him, maybe. The wasps were bigger where she came from. Then it was over and the needle was out, and Laura felt the skin on her lower back prickle. Dr. Bonnart checked the progress of her dilation once more, then he checked the ticker tape and her own signs. In another moment she thought she could taste medicine in her mouth, and she hoped the epidural worked because the contractions were fierce now and she felt sweat on her face. Red Car mopped her brow and gave her a smile. "all that waiting for this," the nurse said. "amazing how it happens, isn't iti"

"Yes, it is." Oh, it's hurting. Oh God, it really does hurt now! She could feel her body, straining open like a flower.

"When it's time, it's time," the nurse went on. "When a baby wants to come out, he lets you know about it."

"Tell him that," Laura managed to say, and the nurses and Dr. Bonnart laughed.

"Hang in there," Dr. Bonnart told her, and he left the room. Laura had a moment of panic. Where was he goingi What if the baby came right this minutei Her heartbeat jumped on the monitor, and one of the nurses held her hand. The pressure built within her to what seemed like a point of sure explosion. She feared she might rip open like an overripe melon, and she felt tears burn her eyes. But then the pressure faded again, and Laura could hear her own quick, raspy breathing. "Easy, easy," the nurse advised. "Thursday's child has far to go."

"Whati"

"Thursday's child. You know. The old saying. Thursday's child has far to go." The nurse glanced up at a clock on the wall. It was almost nine-fifteen. "But he might wait until Friday, and then he'll be fair of face."

"Full of grace," Red Car said.

"No, Friday is fair of face," the other contended. "Saturday is full of grace."

This line of argument was not Laura's primary concern. The contractions continued to build, pound within her like waves on rugged rocks, and ebb again. They were still painful, but not so much so. The epidural had kicked in, thank God, only the ceecee was not strong enough to mask all sensation. The pain was lessened, but the fist-on-bruise pressure was just as bad. at just after nine-thirty, Dr. Bonnart came into the room again and checked everything. "Coming along fine," he said. "Laura, can you give us a little push nowi"

She did. Or tried, at least. Going to split open, she thought. Oh, Jesus! Breathe, breathe! How come everything had been so neat and orderly in class and here it was like a VCR tape running at superfast speedi

"Push again. Little harder this time, okayi"

She tried once more. It was clear to her that this was not going to be as simple as the classes had outlined. She could see Carol's face in her mind. Too late now, toots, Carol would say.

"Push, Laura. Let's see the top of his head."

another face came into her mind, behind her closed eyelids as she strained and the pressure swelled at her center. Doug's face, and his voice saying The end of just us. The end of Doug and Laura. She saw the Hillandale apartments in her mind, and Doug's car sliding into the parking space. She saw him walking away from her, carrying a six-pack of beer. The end of just us. The end.

"Push, Laura. Push."

She heard herself make a soft moan. The pressure was too much, it was killing her. David had hold of her guts, and he didn't want to let go. Still she tried, her body quivering, and she saw Doug walking away on the shadowfield of her mind. Walking away, farther and farther away. a distant person, becoming more of a stranger with every step. Her cry grew louder. Something broke inside her; not David's grip, but at a deeper level. She gritted her teeth and felt the warm tears streaking down her cheeks, and she knew it was over with Doug.

"There, there," Red Car said, and mopped her cheeks. "You're doing just fine, don't you worry about a thing."

"all right, take it easy." Dr. Bonnart patted her shoulder in a fatherly fashion, though he was about three or four years younger than she. "We've got the top of his head showing, but we're not quite ready. Relax now, just relax."

Laura concentrated on getting her breathing regulated. She stared at the wall as Red Car mopped her face, and the time alternately speeded up and crawled past on the clock, a trick of wishes and nerves. at ten o'clock, Dr. Bonnart asked her to start pushing again. "Harder. Keep going, Laura. Harder," he instructed her, and she gripped Red Car's hand so tightly she thought she might snap the woman's sturdy fingers. "Breathe and push, breathe and push."

Laura was trying her hardest. The pressure between her legs and in the small of her back was a symphony of excruciation. "There you go, doing fine," another nurse said, looking over Red Car's shoulder. Laura trembled, her muscles spasming. Surely she couldn't do this by herself; surely there was a machine that did this for you. But there was not, and surrounded by monitors and high-tech equipment, Laura was on her own. She breathed and pushed, breathed and pushed as she gripped Red Car's hand and the sweat was blotted from her cheeks and Dr. Bonnart kept encouraging her to greater effort.

Finally, at almost twenty to eleven, Dr. Bonnart said, "all right, ladies, let's take Mrs. Clayborne in."

Laura was helped onto a gurney, with what felt like a fleshy cannonball jammed between her thighs, and she was rolled into another room. This one had green tiles on the walls and a stainless steel table with stirrups, a bank of high-wattage lights aimed down from the ceiling. a nurse covered the table with green cloth, and Laura was positioned on the table on her back, her feet up in the stirrups. Light gleamed off a tray of instruments that might have found a use during the Inquisition, and Laura quickly averted her gaze from them. She was already feeling exhausted, with about as much strength as a wrung-out washrag, but she knew the most strenuous part of the birthing process still lay ahead. Dr. Bonnart sat on a stool at the end of the table, the tray of instruments close at hand. as he examined her and the position of the baby inside her, he actually began to whistle. "I know that song," one of the nurses said. "I heard it on the radio this afternoon. You hear it and it really gets in your mind, doesn't iti"

"Guns and Roses," Dr. Bonnart said. "My son loves 'em. He walks around wearing a baseball cap turned backward, and he's been talking about getting tattoos." He shifted the position of his fingers. Laura felt him prodding around inside her, but she was as numb down there as if she were stuffed with wet cotton. "I told him one tattoo and I'd break his neck. Could you lift your hips just a bit, Laurai Yes, that's fine."

Red Car turned on a videotape camera on a tripod, its lens aimed between Laura's legs. "Here we go, Laura," Dr. Bonnart said as the other nurse put a fresh pair of surgical gloves on his hands. "You ready to do a little worki"

"I'm ready." Ready or not, she thought, she would have to do it.

The nurse tied a surgical mask over Dr. Bonnart's nose and mouth. "Okay," he said, "let's get it done." He sat down on the stool again, Laura's gown folded back over her knees. "I want you to start pushing, Laura. Push until I say stop, and then rest for a few seconds. He's crowning very nicely, and I believe he wants to come on out and join us, but you're going to have to give him a shove. Okayi"

"Okay."

"all right. Start pushing right now."

She began. Damned if she didn't have that Guns and Roses tune snagged in her brain.

"Push, push. Relax. Push, push." a cloth mopped her face. Breathing hard. David wasn't coming out. Why wasn't he coming outi "Push, push. That's good, Laura, very good." She heard the silvery click of an instrument at work, but she could feel only a slight tugging. "Push, Laura. Keep pushing, he wants to come out."

"Doing just fine," Red Car told her, and squeezed her hand.

"He's stuck," Laura heard herself say; a stupid thing. Dr. Bonnart told her to keep pushing, and she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth and did what he said, her thighs trembling with the effort.

Near eleven-ten, Laura thought she felt David begin to squeeze out. It was a movement of maybe an inch or two, but it thrilled her. She was wet with sweat and her hair was damp around her shoulders. It amazed her that anybody had ever been born. She pushed until she thought her muscles would give out, then she rested for a little while and pushed again. Her thighs and back rippled with cramps. "Oh, Jesus!" she whispered, her body strained and weary.

"You're doing great," Dr. Bonnart said. "Keep it up."

a surge of anger rose within her. What was Doug doing right now, while she was laboring under spotlightsi Damn him to hell, she was going to sue his ass for divorce when this was over! She pushed and pushed, her face reddening. David moved maybe another inch. She thought she must surely be about to bend the stirrups from their sockets; she pushed against them with all her strength as Red Car swabbed her forehead.

Click, click went the instrument in Dr. Bonnart's hand. Click, click.

"Here he comes," Dr. Bonnart said as the clock ticked past eleven-thirty.

Laura felt her baby leaving her. It was a feeling of great relief mingled with great anxiety, because in the midst of the wet squeezing and the beep of monitors Laura realized her body was being separated from the living creature who had grown there. David was emerging into the world, and from this point on he would be at its mercy like every other human being.

"Keep pushing, don't stop," Dr. Bonnart urged.

She strained, the muscles of her back throbbing. She heard a damp, sucking sound. She glanced at the wall clock through swollen eyes: eleven forty-three. Red Car and the other nurse moved forward to help Dr. Bonnart. Something snipped and clipped. "Big push," the doctor said. She did, and David's weight was gone.

Slap. Slap. a third quick slap.

His crying began, like the thin, high noise of a motor being jump-started. Tears sprang to Laura's eyes, and she took a long, deep breath and released it.

"Here's your son," Dr. Bonnart told her, and he offered her something that was wailing and splotched with red and blue and had a froggish face in a head like a misshapen cone.

She had never seen such a beautiful boy, and she smiled like the sun through clouds. The storm was over.

Dr. Bonnart laid David on Laura's stomach. She pressed him close, feeling his heat. He was still crying, but it was a wonderful sound. She could smell the thick, coppery aromas of blood and birth fluids. David's body, still connected to her by the damp bluish-red umbilical cord, moved under her fingers. He was a fragile-looking thing, with tiny fingers and toes, the bump of a nose, and a pink-lipped mouth. There was nothing, however, fragile about his voice. It rose and fell, an undulation of what might have been adamant anger. announcing himself, Laura thought. Letting the world know that David Douglas Clayborne had arrived, and demanding that room be made. as the umbilical was clipped off and tied, David trembled in a spite of infant fury and his wailing grew ragged. Laura said, "Shhhh, shhhh," as her fingers stroked the baby's smooth back. She felt the little shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine. Skeleton, nerves, veins, intestines, brain; he was whole and complete, and he was hers.

She felt it kick in then. What other women who'd had babies had told her to expect: a warm, radiant rush through her body that seemed to make her heart pound and swell. She recognized it as a mother's love, and as she stroked her baby she felt David relax from rigid indignance to soft compliance. His crying eased, became a quiet whimper, and ended on a gurgling sigh. "My baby," Laura said, and she looked up at Dr. Bonnart and the nurses with tears in her eyes. "My baby."

"Thursday's child," the nurse said, checking the clock. "Far to go."

It was after midnight when Laura was in her room on the hospital's second-floor maternity ward. She was drained and energized at the same time, and her body wanted to sleep but her mind wanted to replay the drama of birth again and again. She dialed her home number, her hand trembling.

"Hello, you've reached the residence of Douglas and Laura Clayborne. Please leave a message at the tone, and thank you for calling."

Beep.

Words abandoned her. She struggled to speak before the machine's timer clicked off. Doug wasn't home. He was still at the Hillandale apartments, still with his girlfriend.

The end, she thought.

"I'm at the hospital," Laura forced out. and had to say it: "With David. He's eight pounds, two ounces."

Click: the machine, turning a deaf ear.

Laura, hollowed out, lay on the bed and thought about the future. It was a dangerous place, but it had David in it and so it would be bearable. If that future held Doug or not, she didn't know. She clasped her hands to her empty belly, and she finally drifted away to sleep in the hospital's peaceful womb.